I Will Not Forget You
by Casshirek
Summary: The love of a Cat is never quite forward and certainly complicated. Question stands -- how far does it go? Chapter 2. o_o As though that weren't obvious.
1. A Cat's Promise

Title: I Will Not Forget You (Songfic)  
  
Author: Casshirek  
  
Summary: Where did the Chesire Cat come from? We all know that these creatures of Wonderland are figments of Alice's imagination but surely, they must have come from somewhere. This story deals with the history. And yes, this one is for CC/Alice pairings. Rated PG for various reasons, including a potential kitten-drowning. c.c Mmm. This is the introduction, more or less. Anyone interested in seeing more chapters on this? ^_^; Copyrighted to Electronic Studios, American McGee. Song is property of Sarah MacLachlan and her recording company.  
  
* * *  
  
II remember the nights I watched as you lay sleeping  
  
your body gripped by some far away dream  
  
well I was so scared and so in love then  
  
and so lost in all of you that I had seen/I  
  
Alice?  
  
Do you know what you do to me? Do you have an idea what you mean to me? Your green eyes see so little of the world that is reality, focused upon the dreams that swirl in your mind. You walk with stars in that burning gaze of yours. There is a realm outside imagination that exists within you, a secret place that belongs to no one but you. Alice, you are the key, the proverbial key to madness and miracles.  
  
But you, who can see so much, who knows too much -- you could never see me as anything more than what your honour would allow.  
  
Silly cat.  
  
I remember the first time you called me that as you scooped me into your arms, your pale face framed by a halo of shadowy auburn. Your green eyes were so much warmer then, so much less tormented. You took me home and you loved me. But little did you know what it would bring. When you took a drenched kitten home, you gave birth to me. Me with the eyes of gold and smoke-shadow body, the riddler of Wonderland. So sad that I will never be more than that to you. A silly, silly cat.  
  
IBut no one ever talked in the darkness  
  
no voice ever added fuel to the fire  
  
no light ever shone in the doorway  
  
deep in the hollow of earthly desires/I  
  
There were a thousand and one opportunities for me to speak, the one so eloquent rendered tongue-tied. I could have shown you in deed if not word. But something stayed tongue and paw, something kept me silent. You wanted me as a friend, Alice. And I wanted you to be happy.  
  
IBut if in some dream there was brightness  
  
if in some memory some sort of sign  
  
and flesh be revived in the shadows  
  
blessed our bodies would lay so entwined/I  
  
Alice, I sometimes wonder if I should have told you all of this and sometimes I wonder if we should have never met. I opened the door to your nightmares. You forgave me the moment it happened. Your Chesire Cat and your Dinah -- they could do no wrong in your eyes. But I could never forgive myself. And as you were taken away, I felt Wonderland tremble. More importantly, perhaps, I felt my soul quake. You are my world, Alice. When you were taken away, I had nothing left.  
  
IAnd I will oh I will not forget you  
  
nor will I ever let you go  
  
I will oh I will not forget you/I  
  
Ten years you spent in a prison of stone, ten years you hid within a cage of emotions, immersed in shadows that came, ironically enough, from a single candle flame unknowingly spilled onto your Persian rug. And each night, I came to you, watching you as you slept. No, I will never tell you how many tears I shed as the morning came, as the days passed and your blossoming flower wilted on the vine.  
  
II remember when you left in the morning at daybreak  
  
so silent you stole from my bed  
  
to go back to the one who possesses your soul  
  
and I back to the life that I dread/I  
  
I should not have come. I know that now. I should have been there in Wonderland to fight the madness that infected us all. Though my form warped with yours, my mind twisting in unison with your own, I felt no inclination to be anywhere but your side. Again, I betrayed you yet you forgave me again.  
  
Wonderland speaks to me in a voice not unalike your own, a childlike soprano that is tinged with grief and rage. Though others believe that it is a monster of madness, I know better. In the nights that I watched you, I learnt more than the others, trapped within their burning dreams. Alice, the key has always been you. Wonderland is *you* -- and for it to live, you must die. For your peace is Wonderland's peace, and death is the only serenity you would allow yourself.  
  
ISo I ran like the wind to the water  
  
please don't leave me again I cried  
  
and I threw bitter tears at the ocean  
  
but all that came back was the tide/I  
  
You never saw my tears. You saw only the cat with the sickle moon's grin and the maddened eyes, summoning you to a world that you barely remember. You heard my words but never the tremors in my voice. As I did once before, I do again and I walk beside you, a banner to proclaim your glory. Just like how the White Rabbit brought you into hell, I shall deliver you to the devil herself.  
  
And I will never say a word because even now, I am only your silly cat. But when the day comes, and you and she are both dead, I will remember. While Wonderland celebrates, I will mourn and I will ensure everyone remembers you. The memory of Alice would never die, not as long as there are people who will listen to the feline voices of the wind. I will keep you alive, beloved. Only when the last star has faded will I sleep beside you.  
  
Perhaps then, you will recieve me, your cat.  
  
Your silly cat.  
  
IAnd I will oh I will not forget you.../I  
  
~FIN 


	2. Bittersweet as Yesterday

Title: I Will Not Forget You  
  
Author: Casshirek  
  
Summary: Warning: potential fluff ahead. This is not a typical dark story. With luck, this will do better than my attempt at GW. *snerks* More elaboration on the first chapter, mostly. We meet Jonathan, who makes a brief cameo appearance for now. Yell, if you want to see more of him! :D Even if he's just a plot device. c.c Trying a new style of carrying these stories out. I hope it works as well as it did in my mind. Usual disclaimer, with everyone but Jonathan and the photographer belonging to everyone except me. No more songs. It was just the start that had the song.  
  
* * *  
  
[He treads warily through the attic, conscious of the memories piled up around him. Everything was a fragment of the past, from the mummified grasshopper in one jar to the elaborate gown his sister wore to her finest moment. There is an air of expectance, a yearning for retrieval. Even memories want to be remembered. His path draws him past a desolate cowboy hat, the teddybear that had marshalled his toy troops against childhood nightmares, and the greying wedding veil belonging to his mother. He has only one destination today. A tiny chest gleams within the spring's molten light. He kneels down, flips the latch and runs fingers through the collection of letters. A young girl's elegant script alternates with the rougher penmanship of a boy. He picks up one of them, the one belonging to the little girl, brushes away with the dust with a flick of lanky fingers and reads. The words are simple, couched in English sensibility with just a hint of childish quirks, but remarkably evocative. The memories return easily; the pictures he formed in the theatre of his mind when he first read them. And once again, he begins to see through the eyes of a child. ]  
  
Translucent silver curtained the landscape, washing away all vividity within the world. Colours runneled into watery versions, creating a gentled montage that almost hid the violence of the storm. Storm clouds rippled and writhed, twisting into conflagrations of shadow. Lightning tunneled through the raging grey; flickers of violet-edged white spiderwebs. Streetlamps, awakened from their noontime slumber, radiated golden light.  
  
"Alice!" Lost amidst the velvety shelter of a carriage, a man called her name. "Come inside, child. You're going to get soaked out there."  
  
Dark hair tangled along her shoulders, woven into sodden curls about face and blue pinafore. With an irritable gesture, she jerked a stubborn cluster of hair from her face. Seven years old and far better than any of her peers, Alice Liddel would not be detered from her quest. No amount of rain could ever dampen the brillant light of her green eyes, wide with consternation.  
  
A pathetic mew sounded again.  
  
Somewhere, within the waters of a drain, a kitten laid entrapped. She had spent far too long here, staring into the murky depths in hope of glimpsing the poor feline. Then, it drifted into view, an unrecognisable tabby lump of desperation bobbing past her. The kitten shrieked. Without hesitation, Alice threw her tiny frame forward, oblivious to the filth that splashed onto her person, and wrapped her arms around the cat. With the tenacity of the young, she held on and began to move backwards, fighting currents and wriggling kitten.  
  
"Stop scratching me!" Alice cried. "I'm just trying to save you, you silly cat!"  
  
Kitten remained ignorant of the English language.  
  
There was a stampede of footsteps behind her and strong arms wrapped about her slender waist, pulling her back into safety. Reprimands began to sound as she wrapped the cat her apron, dabbing at the water-gilded whiskers with the tiniest of smiles. Alice was deaf to the admonishments, more engrossed in her patient. Exhausted, it did not undermine her generousity. Tail flicked serenely, brushing against her wrist as she scrubbed at the striped belly.  
  
"I will name you, Dinah." Alice whispered confidentally, tilting her face forward into the cat. A raspy pink tongue licked her nose. "If you don't mind now, that is."  
  
* * *  
  
[A faded photograph is dislodged from the batch of letters, adorned with a Christmas theme and a scribbled greeting. Picture is simple, a vision in joyful unity, where parents and children cluster before a raging hearth. They are laughing into the camera, her family. Only Alice is solemn, more awed than elated, her little Dinah cradled to her face. Their eyes are wide, identical in their intensity. He puts the photograph upon the floor, picks up the subsequent letter and reads on. ]  
  
Winter's icy breath tore through the world, silvering the familar landscape. Tendrils of smoke escaped from chimneys into the velvet-black heavens, obscuring the argent stars. Everywhere, there were windows brightened from within, where the festive cheer reigned supreme. Carollers, the twinkling of sleigh bells and all the sounds of Christmas blended together to provide faint ambiance. But Alice could not care less, engaged in a game of cat and girl with her newest acquisition.  
  
The dimunitive tabby flattened against the persian rug. White-tufted tail was held aloft like a war banner, weaving gently with every considering step that she took. Her tiny posterior wiggled once, in warning, before she leapt for for a pink ribbon. It jerked away, moments before paws made contact with the fibres. The kitten blinked inquisitively, her head tilted to one side. That was not supposed to happen. Another step was taken, another pounce was made - the results were the same. The third attempt led to a catastrophic results. Dinah fell flat on her face, a beaten huntress. She mewed sulkily.  
  
"Alice, don't encourage her!" A woman, regal in her advanced age, swept forward with a concerned smile. She plucked the indignant kitten from the floor, brushing imaginary specks of dirt from the black-striped her. "You know what this would lead to. I do not want to see poor little mice dragged in here, half-dead and ready for eating."  
  
"Mama!" Alice protested resentfully. "Dinah is not a horrid little alley cat. She would never do such a thing." Green eyes met inquisitive gold. "I'm right, aren't I? I know you're just the kindest little kitten in the world, the perfect little lady that would never ever do such nasty things to us."  
  
The arguement between mother and daughter was terminated by an imperious cough. Father had swept into the room, cigar nursed between his teeth. For a regular smoker, he possessed remarkably healthy dentures. There was no need for further instructions. A photographer, hired for this exclusive effort, sidled crab-like into the room and took his place behind the camera. The family clustered around the fire, jostling and whispering as they took their place, never quite happy with where they were situated or how much of them would be apparent in the photograph. Yet their faces told the truth: the bickering was a mere game between loved ones.  
  
"Ready?"  
  
Silence descended over them. Alice wiggled into the supportive arms of her father, Dinah clasped within her slender arms. A white-gloved hand rested daintily on her head and Alice looked up into her mother's smiling face.  
  
"On the count of three."  
  
Warm smells from the kitchens drifted within: turkey was roastd to perfection.  
  
"One .."  
  
There was a rapping on the door, and cries of Christmas greeting.  
  
"Two."  
  
Carollers assembled outside, wishing joy upon the family within. A soprano within the group, probably new to the affair, hit an off-key note. Smiles became laughter; spontaneous mirth that bubbled from within. Only Alice remained quiet, as bedazzled by the lens as Dinah.  
  
"Three."  
  
Click-ca-click-ca --  
  
*CLICK*  
  
* * *  
  
[The next letters, submitted over the course of a languid golden summer, are near identical. Written carelessly, they betray the writer's restlessness, the eagerness to be away and playing. Resplendent with graphic descriptions of family and friends, an imaginary world that only she could see, and always with Dinah somewhere within, they are shorter but somehow more powerful. There is a force to her words, a need to impress. He remembers laughing, remembers dreaming in the rainy nights of tea parties and disappearing cats. There is a hesitance to his movements, a faint trembling in slender wrists as he reads these. Pictures of Dinah, captured in a thousand different positions, are set aside. But he does not ever stop.]  
  
Alice stared disbelievingly at her kitten, an angelic vision of tabby goodness all wrapped up in a silken pink bow. Had she found Dinah in the kitchen, struggling with the milk or attacking a chocholate mouse, she might have been much less surprised. Certainly, Alice would have found nothing amiss had Dinah came home with a minnow between her teeth. But, she had not anticipated this.  
  
To all outward appearances, Dinah was reading one of her books!  
  
A tiny, white-gloved paw skimmed lines of printed black. The expression that Dinah wore was studious, the slightest furrow to her grey brow only enhanced the illusion. Her slim tail twitched mechanically, flicking from left to right in earnest concentration. Alice watched for many long moments, unsure of how to react to that puzzling sight.  
  
"Dinah?" The cat looked up. "Whatever are you doing?"  
  
With a mew, the little kitten indicated the illustration of a whale with a look of focused perplexity. And Alice laughed quietly, much to Dinah's chagrin.  
  
"I thought you were reading the book." Settling down beside her in a cloud of violet, Alice plucked the unresisting kitten from the book to put in her lap. "And that . " said Alice, even as she picked up the volume. ".. is a whale."  
  
The rest of the evening melted into an incomprehensible melange of sunlight, sugar and a visit through the Looking Glass into a world far beyond adult ken.  
  
[He stares contemplatively at the kitten's picture, aware of the brightness of those frozen eyes. The letter is reread once again, studied in greater detail before he shifts his attention away. Could it be? He wonders absently, nursing a foolish smile. No. And he continues reading, evoking the ghosts of the springtimes past. The other letters are ignored in favour of what follows, a bundle of newspaper clippings that have begun to yellow in their age. The pictures within, unlikely the others contained within, are less than pretty. There is the picture of a mansion, burning blood and tangerine within the night. People run everywhere underfoot, and the firefighters slave ineffectually over the blaze. Another clipping is an obituary, upon which is emblazoned the faces of a man and a woman, a smiling couple that the newspaper promises would be remembered forever. A face jumps out from him in the next article, rendered in stark hues of black and white. Her eyes are wide, maddened and her Medusa hair does little to soften the pain attacking her face. Mouth is opened, caught in a scream. The words below explain how the girl is the sole survivor, a most lucky person in a most unlucky situation. He closes his hands over her silently shrieking mouth and looks to the next letters. No memories are conjured, only a voice that whispers into his head as he reads on. Her meaning is fragmented, jumbled together in a tear-streaked puzzle of guilt and questions. ]  
  
Dinah?  
  
Where is Dinah?  
  
They can't have taken her away, too. I remember seeing her running away into the night. Just like how I ran when I heard Mama screaming for me and when the old Nurse charged me like a bear made from flames and soot.  
  
Why won't they give me Dinah? All I have is Papa's golden pocketwatch and the rabbit that Mama gave me when I was little. I am lonely, Jonathan. I want to go home. I don't like these faces. This family isn't mine. They keep shifting me, every week or so. The only thing I ever seem to say nowadays is - "Good-bye." Good bye, friends. Good bye, family. I don't remember bother to remember their names now.  
  
Tell them to let me go home. I want to go home.  
  
I remember. I cannot go home  
  
I destroyed it all.  
  
I so want to close my eyes, Jonathan. I can't ever sleep nowadays because everytime I close my eyes, there is the fire in my head. I see everything happening again. I dare not sleep, I dare not be alone - but I want them to go away. I don't know what I want anymore.  
  
I'm scared, Jonathan.  
  
I'm very scared.  
  
[The final letters, written in a trembling hand, are tucked lovingly away into a corner. Nothing else remains within the chest save for a ribbon of palest pink, which he puts into his coat pocket. The articles, pictures and letters are returned to the chest as he rises, walking away to leave the attic to its memories once more. ]  
  
* * *  
  
[Years pass]  
  
* * *  
  
Rutledge Private Clinic and Asylum is known throughout the country as a pioneer in their ghastly field. Numerous inovative techniques have been employed to cure their patients, including blood-letting and shock treatment, both once reviled for their seeming cruelty but now acknowledged for effectiveness. While patients have always been isolated from each other and the outside world, a step taken to ensure that the dementia suffered by one does not infect or is tained by another, exceptions have been made. Late one winter, ten years after Alice's incarceration, a plea was made to allow her to continue her correspondence with a lad named Jonathan Mendel who had spent years in long-distance communication with her.  
  
The request was approved.  
  
* * *  
  
[Tiny motes of brownish-red dance along the upper right hand corner of the letter. Beneath them, there is the faint image of a white bunny. There is a perverse beauty to the paper, not off-white but a pastel rose that feels like silk in a person's hands. A delicate perfume, mingled with antiseptic, emanates from the pale pink fibres. She writes as she once had, with a steady hand that communicates proper upbringing. The words bring an ache to his heart and bittersweet memories of what once was.]  
  
Dear Jonathan,  
  
It has been most certainly been a long while since we last exchanged letters. How have you been? The last I remember, you said that were about to buy yourself a puppy. Have you done so? I personally prefer cats, though. They're so much kinder, smarter, and quieter but to each his own, like Papa always said. I still think you ought to get yourself a kitten.  
  
There isn't very much going on here, on my end. My parents refuse to visit me, for some reason. I think Papa is on one of his business trips and Mama is feeling faint once again. It is a pity that the nurse is never around either, I do so miss her. Not, the nurse we have here, but my old one, you understand. I miss Dinah most of all, I think. Ever since I got here, I haven't seen her again. I wonder if she's afraid of the shadows. I do hope she's okay.  
  
But I am being ever so rude here, talking about myself on and on like this.  
  
Do tell me how you have been. I have missed you so.  
  
Your dear friend,  
  
Alice.  
  
[He is older now, a twenty-three year old man living within his dormitory. Spring's light cascades through the window to render the desk in pale honey, leaving everything more wistful than they once were. The world is blanketed with golden sunlight outside and from his place by the window, he can hear the voices of children in play. He remembers. Fingers run quietly over the mostly blank paper, tracing the outline of his words. There is a pensive expression on his face, a bittersweet smile that reflects in dark blue eyes. Hunching over the letter, he continues to write. ]  
  
[Moonlight washes through the cell window, streamers of pale silver that barely illuminated the paper on the floor. In the distance, there was screaming - a midnight cacaphony derieved from the demands, howls, and protests of lost souls. The slender figure, dressed in blue and white, laid on her belly, chin propped up in opened palms. She reads for a while, her air curious before she begins to write under a nurse's wary eye.]  
  
[Her response leaves him stunned. There is a finality to her words, a fatalistic acceptance of whatever would come. Distracted, prefunctory: there is none of the familar vigour, lost amidst her hunt for an unnamed dream. She asks that he writes no more, promising that this is the last but not the final letter she would send. The letter is reread several times, blue eyes seeking out the meaning incised between the lines. There is none. With a sigh, he opens the tiny chest, and files it within. There is a lock, tiny and bejeweled, which he uses to fasten the container even as he puts it atop his desk. He leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Moonlight glitters upon a metallic label, and the shadows move. Upon the dimunitive plaque, there are these words:  
  
I will not forget. ]  
  
~Fin 


End file.
